Nov 22, 2024 13:33:00

A large number of scientists are migrating from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky

Around the first half of November 2024

, the number of users migrating from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky increased sharply , and the number of users exceeded 20 million on November 20, 2024. On the same day, an article was published on the website of the world's most prestigious academic journal, 'Science,' stating that 'Many scientists are migrating from X to Bluesky.'

Like 'old Twitter': The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky | Science | AAAS
https://www.science.org/content/article/old-twitter-scientific-community-finds-new-home-bluesky

Below are the results of a survey conducted by epidemiologist Adam Kucharski on the old Twitter on July 7, 2023, asking, 'Which social networking site do you think you will spend the most time on in a year?' The most popular was Twitter (now X), which won 61.5% of the votes, and only 7.5% of users voted for Bluesky. However, at the time of writing, Kucharski himself had already moved to Bluesky, and many scientists have created Bluesky accounts.

Where (if any) do you think you'll be spending most time one year from now?

— Adam Kucharski (@adamjkucharski) July 6, 2023

According to Mike Young , who is familiar with the relationship between scientists and social media, as of August 2024, there were about 20,000 'scientists followed by 30 or more scientists on Bluesky,' but in November 2024, a survey of 'scientists followed by 40 or more scientists on Bluesky' found that the number had increased to about 40,000. In addition, Young said, 'At this point (about one week after the analysis), it may have doubled.'

According to Young, scientists are migrating to Bluesky in search of the 'old Twitter.' The 'old Twitter' refers to the old Twitter, when it played roles such as 'scientists can talk to each other,' 'post and discuss papers,' 'become a hub for publishing research results to the public,' and 'know the hot topic of papers just by looking at the timeline.' On the other hand, the current X makes it difficult to use the above methods. For example, Katharine Hayhoe, a climatologist at Texas Tech University, said, 'Two months after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, the algorithm began to work against 'people who post factually about the climate,'' pointing out that fact-based discussion has become difficult.

In addition to Bluesky, other sites that people migrated from X include Mastodon and Threads. However, a survey that tracked scientists who migrated to Mastodon found that 10% to 20% of scientists left Mastodon each month. Sarah Rajtmajer , who conducted the survey, said, 'X has a vast network of scientists. Scientists didn't want to miss out on the trends in the network.'

Unlike other SNS, Bluesky allows scientists to gain many followers without being very active. Ujun Jeong , who studies user migration between SNSs, said, 'Interestingly, the more prominent scientists on X were, the more likely they were to migrate to Bluesky. Also, users who established a presence on Bluesky tended to remain active on both X and Bluesky. This may have led to the formation of a community of scientists on Bluesky.' Jeong also pointed out that the 'similarities between X and Bluesky' are helping scientists migrate.

Bluesky has a feature called 'feeds' that allows users to extract and sort posts based on specific criteria, and offers a variety of feeds, such as ' Science ,' which provides a wide range of scientific information, and ' Climate Science ,' which provides information on climatology.